Alone with a Book

A luminous exploration of the transformative experience of close reading from one of the greatest stylists alive.

In this rich and deeply engaging collection of interconnected essays, Tessa Hadley reflects on a lifetime of reading with the clarity and perceptiveness that have made her one of the most respected names in contemporary fiction. Hadley charts her development as a lover of literature from a book-mad childhood shaped by libraries and imaginary worlds, through the long, uncertain years of writing and teaching, to the mature artistic vision that defines her work today.

Guiding the reader through works by writers as varied as George Eliot and George Saunders, Tolstoy and Elizabeth Bowen, as well as a close examination of a handful of artworks, and culminating with pieces on Henry James and on Colm Toibin’s novel about James, Alone with a Book makes a passionate case for the importance of consciousness, perception, style, and the slow refinement of artistic judgment within one’s inner world.